After a delay. Apple TV hits living rooms this week heralded by a rave review from the Journal’s Walt Mossberg. The $299 wireless set-top with “carefully limited” functions worked great” in 10 days of testing, Mossberg and colleague Katherine Boehret report, adding, “we can easily recommend it for people who are yearning for a simple way to show on their big TVs all that stuff trapped on their computers.” Their verdict: “it’s a beautifully designed, easy-to-use product that should be very attractive to people with widescreen TV sets and lots of music, videos, and photos stored on computers. It has some notable limitations, but we really liked it. It is classic Apple: simple and elegant.”
Intentionally limited: “It can’t receive or record cable or satellite TV, so it isn’t meant as a replacement for your cable or satellite box, or for a digital video recorder like a TiVo. It can’t play DVDs, so it doesn’t replace your DVD player. Its sole function is to bring to the TV digital content stored on your computer or drawn from the Internet. Like a DVD player, it uses its own separate input on your TV set, and you have to change inputs using your TV remote to use it.” Set for widescreen, it doesn’t work with most older sets and it’s best for HD. (The included remote sounds like the weakest link, no pun intended.)
Yet to come: It does not stream much directly from the internet, only clips and trailers. It’s not directly interactive with the iTunes store. Material has to be downloaded to a computer before it can be played through Apple TV. Mossberg expects that to change even though Apple wouldn’t confirm it: “We fully expect Apple to add the capability to stream or download a variety of content directly from the Internet, and that this new capability will be available on current Apple TV boxes through software updates.” That can be done on Xbox 360, they admit, but “the comparable Xbox costs 50 percent more than Apple TV, is much larger and stores only half as much material.”
Target users: Apple TV isn’t for “that small slice of techies who buy a full-blown computer and plug it directly into a TV, or for gamers who prefer to do it all through a game console. And it’s not for people who are content to watch downloaded TV shows and movies directly on a computer screen. Instead, it’s for the much larger group of people who want to keep their home computers where they are and yet enjoy their downloaded media on their widescreen TVs.” And, yes, it worked fine with Windows including Vista.
We’ll be hearing a lot more about Apple TV over the next few days. If you’re in the vanguard drop a line in the comments about how it goes.
Update: FT: Pre-order customers are getting shipping notices but Apple is only repeating its intention to ship mid-March. (I checked the Apple store and orders are promised to ship in 3-5 days.) Forrester’s Josh Bernoff plays the role of skeptic, saying the limited downloads available through iTunes could limit the appeal and that Microsoft is “way better positioned to succeed” in this area.
Update 2: Speaking of Xbox 360, Engadget is reporting that a new black Xbox 360 Elite is on the way with a 120G hard drive and HDMI. Price: $479.
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